Combining Ability of Different Agronomic Traits and Yield Components in Hybrid Barley

Abstract

Selection of parents based on their combining ability is an effective approach in hybrid breeding. In this study, eight maintainer lines and nine restorer lines were used to obtain 72 crosses for analyzing the general combining ability (GCA) and special combining ability (SCA) for seven agronomic and yield characters including plant height (PH), spike length excluding awns (SL), inter-node length (IL), spikes per plant (SP), thousand kernel weight (TKW), kernel weight per plant (KWP) and dry matter weight per plant (DWP). The results showed that GCA was significantly different among parents and SCA was also significantly different among crosses. The performance of hybrid was significantly correlated with the sum of female and male GCA (TGCA), SCA and heterosis. Hu1154 A, Mian684 A, 86F098 A, 8036 R and 8041 R were excellent parents with greater general combining ability. Five crosses, Hu1154 A×8032 R, Humai10 A×8040 R, Mian684 A×8037 R, Mian684 A×8041 R and 86F098 A×8037 R, showed superior heterosis for most characters.

Fig 1. Box plots for performances of parents and crosses for seven measured traits.

P1: female parents; P2: male parents; H: hybrids. The circle ‘o’ stands for mean value. The plus sign ‘+’ stands for outliers. The upper and lower lines outside the box stand for max and min adjacent value, respectively. The line inside the box stands for median value. The upper and lower hinge of the box stand for 75% and 25% percentile, respectively.